Wrapped In Red
by JoMarchWrites
Summary: With the unexpected collapse of her partner's marriage just before Thanksgiving, Olivia Benson does everything she can to keep his life together, and his family's holiday spirits bright. Without warning or intent, the two quickly find out that the greatest gifts are not wrapped in red, and sometimes, they take a little longer to deliver, but they are always worth the wait. E/O
1. Chapter 1

**_Law and Order: SVU is the intellectual property of Dick Wolf. The use of the characters, settings, and plotlines is not malicious. This is a work of fiction._**

"Here," Kathleen Stabler said through a yawn, thrusting a hand out toward the brunette next to her.

Olivia took the coffee with a smile, bringing it to her lips and humming in exhausted appreciation. "Thanks," she said.

Kathleen brushed her long, blonde hair back with her now-free hand, and she looked at Olivia with a grin. "Quite the basketful of goodies, ya got there, Liv."

"Stop fishing," Olivia chuckled. "Your gifts have already been wrapped. These are..."

"For Dad," Maureen, another Stabler teen, said from behind Olivia. "Right?"

"Kind of," Olivia sighed. "Look, you guys have been through a lot, and this stuff...it isn't exactly for Christmas. Most of it will be opened and put away today." She shrugged. "I'm just...taking advantage of sales while I can. I'm a cop, living in Manhattan. I don't exactly have a ton of money to blow on..."

"Wait," Maureen said, interrupting Olivia and shoving a hand into the red shopping cart. She moved a few boxes around and looked up at Olivia, a smile on her face but tears in her eyes. "You're...Liv, you don't have to..."

"If I don't," Olivia said, cutting the sixteen year old off, "You know it wouldn't get done. Not anytime soon." She sipped her coffee and pushed her cart as the line moved. "Oh, we're next, Thank God."

Kathleen laughed. "Thanks for coming with us, by the way," she said, taking a gulp of her own coffee. "I guess, you were probably gonna be out tonight, anyway, but this is a tradition with Maur and me, and the last couple of years..."

"What she means," Maureen broke in, "Is that it hasn't been this much fun. Not in a long time. So thanks for reminding us why we loved Black Friday so much." She folded her arms and smiled. "Same time next year?"

Kathleen chuckled and nudged Olivia with her elbow. "Huh? Huh?"

Olivia rolled her eyes but laughed. "Why not?" she finally agreed, looking from Kathleen to Maureen. She loved the girls like they were her own daughters, and she loved their brother and other sister just as much. Lizzie and Dickie, twelve year old twins, stayed home in bed while the unlikely trio braced the crowds and the cold, and the New York City night, to shop till they dropped. She sighed, then, realizing why she loved the children so much. Why she was at a Target in Queens at two-in-the-morning with a cart-full of appliances and furnishings that were never going to see the inside of her own apartment. Why she didn't give a shit if they did or not. She smiled at Kathleen, took another sip of coffee, and pushed the cart forward again, letting herself fully form the reality of that thought in her head. She was in love with their father.

"I think this was the last place," Kathleen said, using her coffee-less hand to help Olivia and Maureen stack their goods on the register's belt. "We can go home."

"You staying again, tonight, Liv?" Maureen asked, something hopeful in her eyes as she bit her lip.

Olivia saw that fleeting glimmer in the girl's eyes. It made her heart stop, and momentarily, she wondered if her father would look at her the same way, if he would ever be the one asking her to stay. "Well," she sighed, "Someone has to put all this stuff away."

Maureen laughed, dropping the last few things onto the moving conveyor belt. "Okay, Liv," she said, hiding a more mischievous smirk. She knew why Liv would be staying, and she loved her for it. She looked over at her, then, and she softened. "Okay."

Olivia stifled another yawn and looked at Maureen. "How are you guys holding up? Have you talked to your mother? Did she explain..."

Kathleen interrupted her with a snort. "She's called, sent us all a bunch of e-mails and text messages." She tugged awkwardly at her sleeves. "She said she didn't leave us, just Dad. She's talking to a lawyer."

Olivia looked down, and then up at the cashier. Suddenly, words didn't matter so much. There was an uneasy feeling building in the pit of her stomach, her entire body now focused on Kathleen's last words. "Oh. I'm...I'm sorry."

Maureen shrugged. "Don't be. None of this was your fault." She stopped speaking, then, as she saw Olivia, poised to hand the cashier her credit card, without question. "Has he thanked you?" she asked. "I mean...any of us. Have any of us actually said thank you for everything you've done? That you're doing?"

"You don't have to thank me," Olivia said, giving the girl a warm smile. "Knowing you're all safe, and happy...well, as happy as possible given the, uh, circumstances...it's my job to keep you that way, so, please, don't..."

"It's not," Kathleen said, her coffee resting against her lips. "Don't get me wrong, we love you for it, we do. And we know Dad does. But...it's not your job. You don't have to feel oblig..."

"Hey, hey," Olivia said sternly, holding up a finger. "I don't, and you're not an obligation. Sweetie, you're a priority." She wrapped three fingers around the fifteen-year-old's chin, smiling. "Your family is my priority."

Kathleen, looking into Olivia's eyes, seeing how sincere she was, smiled. "And your ours." She smirked and wagged her eyebrows. "And Dad's."

"Okay," Olivia moaned and rolled her eyes, dropping her hand. "You've had too much coffee. Or not enough." She shook her head, swiping her credit card through the machine. She nodded to the young man at the register, and then pushed the red cart, filled with bags, toward the doors.

"Nice going," Maureen hissed at her sister. "I don't think she knows! I mean, I don't even think Dad knows!"

"They know," Kathleen said, rolling her eyes. The sisters followed Olivia out to her car, helped her load the bags, and got into the back seat, hoping the ride back to the house wouldn't be too awkward now.

He rubbed his eyes, annoyed, mumbling his displeasure as he padded barefoot over to the kitchen. He stopped in the archway, staring at Olivia, watching her rearranging things on the counter. "What are you doing?" his scratchy voice called from behind her.

She turned, wide-eyed. "Oh! Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you up."

"I was getting up, anyway." He rubbed his eyes again, yawning. "I fell asleep on the couch, I guess I got used to it, but...I'm kinda looking forward to finally getting a good night's sleep in an actual bed." He laughed almost bitterly, but then walked toward her. He saw the glazed look in her eyes. "You okay?"

She nodded, impressed that she had enough control over herself to do so. He was shirtless, wearing a pair of flannel pajama pants, low-slung enough on for her to see distinctive cuts in his muscles, ones that meant there was nothing between the cotton and his bare skin. She knew she was staring at his body as she moved around the kitchen, but she couldn't help it. "I'm good."

He raised an eyebrow. "You just put the milk in the microwave."

She whipped her head over to the black box, cursing under her breath, and pulled the handle. She grabbed the gallon of milk and put it back in the refrigerator, and then turned back toward Elliot. "Being out with the girls all night is catching up to me. I'm...tired." She bit her lip, her eyes catching the carved dip in his hip again.

"Wait..." he scratched his head, realizing something. "We have a microwave." He pointed to the black box, then to Olivia, and back again. "Kathy took the..." and then, his eyes landed on several other items that had been pilfered and pillaged when his wife left the house, left the kids, and left him. "She also took the toaster and the..wait, that's not..." he tapped the top of a new-agey coffee pot with three different sized hot plates, one with the carafe nestled atop it, filled with fresh coffee. "This wasn't like the one we had before," he muttered, and then turned slowly to look at Olivia. "I take a power-nap and you buy half the shit they sell at Best Buy? Including the Viper of coffee pots?"

"It was Target," she said, shrugging and smirking at him. "Besides, the one you had before made your coffee taste like the swill we have to swallow at work. You deserved better."

He shook his head, flummoxed. "That's not what...what else did you do?" He ran out of the kitchen and into his bedroom, flicking the light-switch and looking around. Framed photos of him and his children hung where the ones from his wedding used to live. He smiled, and his gaze fell to the side of the room. The weathered, wicker hamper Kathy had taken with her had been replaced by a taller, broader fabric and wire one, two compartments labeled 'Light Side' and 'Dark Side' with dueling light-sabers embroidered into the cotton. He laughed, covering his mouth with his hand. He took a few steps and headed into the master bathroom, his hand wrapping around the Darth Vader shaped cup on the sink. He noticed the Yoda toothbrush holder and the C3PO soap dispenser, and he couldn't help it. He turned around fast and wrapped his arms around her, squeezing. "Thank you."

She was stunned. Frozen into stillness. Her brain was screaming for her arms to move, to hold him back, hug him as tightly as he was her, but her body refused to cooperate. "El...I...I was just..." she stopped, gasping slightly. feeling his muscles twitch against her. She smirked. One rather large muscle was pressing into her, making her want to wrap more than just her arms around him. "Don't mention it." She finally exhaled and her tingling arms looped around his waist.

He exhaled, pulling her tighter, wishing he knew how to show her how much the seemingly small gestures had meant to him. He pushed back a bit, looked into her eyes, and whispered, "Why?"

She pushed him away completely, raking her nails through her hair as she turned and walked out of his bedroom. She knew he was following, and she talked to him without looking at him. "She took everything that wasn't either too heavy or nailed down. I'm sure, if she could have, she would've ripped the cable out of the walls. I wasn't about to go home, leaving you all here without basic necessities."

"That coffeepot, Liv, is not a basic necessity," he said, folding his arms across his chest as he leaned against the wall.

She didn't even crack a smile. "It is if you want me to be a halfway-decent human being in the morning." She watched him laugh, and the smile she gave him lit up her world. It had been weeks since she'd seen him smile like that, and it sent shivers down her spine, and to other places. "Speaking of, uh, sleeping...you, you, um...you talk in your sleep."

"So do you," he countered, his usually bright eyes darkening as his smile stayed in place. He knew what she was trying to tell him, and he retorted by, in his own way, telling her he didn't care what she heard, because he heard some pretty choice things coming out of her unconscious lips, too.

"Okay, then," she said, her eyes widening, turning away from him. She finished plugging in the freshly unboxed gadgets, and then turned off the kitchen light. "I'll, uh, I'll sleep on the couch, then."

He furrowed his brow and shook hie head, confused. "No, no, you don't...we've been sharing the bed for weeks, and it hasn't..." he reached for her, grabbing her arm. "Unless it's making you uncomfortable. I can...I can take the couch, I told you, I'm used to it."

"I'm not kicking you out of your own bed," she said with a scoff. "It's...look, whatever you heard..."

"And should I ask what gems of wisdom I spout in the middle of the night?" he asked, interrupting. "I know what I dream about, and if I'm saying anything like what...well, then, Detective Benson, you need to arrest me."

She laughed and brushed her hair back, and then she rolled her eyes. She sighed, looked at him, and then her lightheartedness faded. "How could she just..." she bit her lip. "A month before Thanksgiving. Who does that?"

He sighed and rested his right hand on the small of her back, guiding her into the bedroom again. "It's common," he said, matter-of-factly. "Most people end unwanted relationships before Thanksgiving, so they avoid having to deal with family parties, you know, Christmas, New Year's, and of course, Valentine's Day. It saves money, emotional strain, and it saves face. I don't think...no one would have been happy, and the holidays would've sucked. She did us all a favor, because now, we get to enjoy them, right?"

Olivia exhaled slowly again, pulling the decorative pillows off of the bed and throwing them onto the chair near the door. "It's still a bitch move! I mean, if she wanted to leave, fine, great, Go With God, but to take everything with her...into an apartment she'd already had rented...meaning she planned this," she spat harshly and let out a loud grunt. "I don't cook a lot as it is, but I worked my ass off for the last two days, five side dishes with one pot that I kept having to wash out, a plastic spatula, and a roll of tin foil, so you would all have..."

"Liv, Liv, breathe!" he rested his strong, large hands on her shoulders, feeling them heave under his touch. He saw her nostrils flare and a small vein in the side of her jaw pulse as she clenched and tightened it. "Calm down. Thanksgiving dinner was...the best I can remember having in a long time. For a lot of reasons. I didn't even know you could make mashed potatoes, let alone a twenty-pound turkey, stuffing, and you baked pie."

"I can cook, El," she almost growled. "I don't feel the need to cook entire meals, since it's just me, so I order in. Takeout for one. It's cheaper and makes less of a mess, but it doesn't mean I'm incapable of..."

"Why," he said, covering her mouth with his hand, "Are you yelling?" He bent his head a bit and looked directly into her eyes, a playful but domineering smirk on his face. "I didn't say you couldn't cook, I didn't even say I was surprised that you can. All I said, was that I didn't know." He let his hand fall away from her mouth and rest against the side of her face. "It makes me wonder...what else I don't know about you." He scraped his teeth over his bottom lip, and as he left her go, and walked over to what had become 'his side' of the bed, he smiled. He watched her take a deep breath and then crawl into the bed, pulling the comforter up. He slid in beside her and turned off the light, and then rolled over to look at her, smiling. He had a feeling he would find out everything he didn't know, and more, as long as she would let him.

 _ **Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. And thank you all for reading.**_

 _ **Peace and Love**_

 _ **Jo**_

 _ **MarchCommaJo on Twitter**_


	2. Chapter 2

**_Law and Order: SVU is the intellectual property of Dick Wolf. The use of the characters, settings, and plotlines is not malicious. This is a work of fiction._**

Olivia was trying like hell to keep the four Stabler kids occupied, busying them with gift-wrapping, cookie-baking, and tree-decorating. She'd even turned up the music playing through the sound system in the living room, hoping that the sounds of some 90's boy-band warbling through Christmas songs would drown out the screaming coming from the bedroom. She heard him, though, and she wiped her hands clean of sprinkles and sugar before taking a chance and walking toward the door. She turned the knob and pushed her way into the room, slowly, as quietly as she could, and she held her breath as she nudged the door closed behind her. She toed her way over to Elliot, who was turning a new shade of reddish-purple with every curse and cry that erupted from his mouth.

"Like hell you are, Kathy!" he fumed. "You left them in the middle of the night! You walked out on them! On me!"

Olivia jumped, squeezing her eyes shut, as Elliot's balled fist slammed down on the cherry-wood dresser he was standing in front of. She swallowed the urge to cry for him, but couldn't control the urge to reach her hands out.

"Oh, fuck you, Kathy!" he barked into the phone. "I hope you do! I really want to see you try! You know they're old enough to choose, and all I have to do is make one phone call, and your ass doesn't stand a fucking chance!" He waited, he scoffed at something she'd said, and then he narrowed his eyes. "Fuck you, Kathy! Go to hell!" He hung up and threw the phone onto the bed before his hands crashed down onto the dresser again, making the cologne and perfume bottles littering the surface rattle and a few picture frames fall over. He closed his eyes and bit his lip hard, but he felt Olivia's hands smoothing over his shoulders. Without hesitating at all, he turned sharply and pulled her against him, wrapping his strong arms around her.

She'd gasped softly before sinking into the hug, and her hands ran up and down his back. "I don't the kids heard..."

"Thank you," he interrupted. He took a breath. "You...you shouldn't have heard that, either, I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize," she sighed into his ear. She felt his hands creep lower on her back and she took a shallow breath when he squeezed her tighter. "What...what did she..."

He interrupted her again. "She wants custody of the kids. After what she fucking did, Liv, she wants..."

"Well," she said, cutting him off and still talking softly, right into his ear, "I want a yacht, a pony, and villa in Italy, neither of us are gonna get what we want."

He laughed, sniffling and sinking deeper into her. "God, thank you," he breathed, shaking his head as it rested on her shoulder. "I mean it, you knew what was going on in here, you kept the kids distracted, now...now you're distracting me. You've been..." he stopped himself, and he pushed her back only enough to look at her face. "Wait, just now, you said...you don't think she'll..."

"Elliot," she said, stopping his words, searching his eyes and trying to keep her own selfish desires at bay, "If there was any sort of conversation, maybe you'd be in a worse place. Our job, the hours, a judge would more than likely think of it as...unstable." She saw his eyes flash and his bottom lip tremble again. "But..." she said, cupping his face, "She walked out, without saying anything to anyone. She took half your shit and moved across town into an apartment that she rented three months ago. She knew she was leaving you, and she never talked about it, not with you, and not with the kids. That's not gonna sit right with any judge on the bench. Even Petrovsky wouldn't ignore what she did; it's clear familial abandonment."

He took another deep breath, his red eyes staring at her and his hands sliding up and down her back. He moved closer, his voice dropped, and he bent his head a bit. "You just have this way of making everything so much better."

"Hey, Dad? Liv?" Kathleen opened the door.

Olivia and Elliot had separated at the sound of the knob jiggling, both knowing what the teen could have, and probably would have, walked in on a few minutes later. "Yeah, Katie?"

Kathleen looked at her father, then eyed Olivia, seeing the woman biting her nails. "Everything okay in here?"

Olivia nodded. "Just talking about..."

"Mom?" Kathleen guessed, folding her arms. "Yeah, she...she just texted Maureen. She...she didn't read it, though. None of us...we haven't really felt like talking to her." She looked down and drummed her fingers along her crossed arms. "Anyway, I just...I just came in to ask...well, Dad's the only one who can reach the top of the tree, so..."

"Yeah," Elliot sighed, running one hand down his face and resting the other on his hip. "We'll be right in, honey."

Kathleen tried to smile, but her mood was shot by the mere thought of her mother. She turned and walked out of the bedroom, not bothering to close the door behind her.

Elliot looked at Olivia, hand still scrubbing along his chin, and he exhaled. "You know if she didn't walk in when she did..."

"We would have made a monumental mistake," she said, nodding, not looking at him.

"What?" he spat in a harsh whisper, his eyes narrowing as both hands dropped to his sides.

She eyed him, confused. "That's what you...isn't that what you were gonna say?"

Elliot shook his head. "No," he said flatly. "Not even close."

She bit her lip and nodded at him, then jerked her head toward the door. "We should...go."

"Liv," he said, grabbing her arm and stopping her. He turned her around again and held her still, both hands on her shoulders. "It wouldn't have been a mistake," he whispered, looking into her eyes. "And it wouldn't have been just because I was upset, or just because I needed..."

"I know," she said softly. "You wouldn't do that if..." she swallowed and blinked once, catching her breath. "We really should get out there. Who knows what kind of mess they're making, and we really...shouldn't give them a reason to think anything...that you and me are up to...something."

He gave her a half-smile, letting out a short breath, and moved one hand from her shoulder to her face, cupping it gently and tracing the slope under her eye with his thumb. "Not yet, anyway," he whispered. He closed his eyes and pulled her toward him, just as he'd done before, embracing her tightly. He mumbled something into the crook of her neck, then straightened himself out, keeping one arm around her. He led her out of the bedroom and walked with her into the living room, his eyes still focused on her, though he knew she was looking at the kids.

"Dad!" Dickie shouted cheerfully as he shot up off of the couch. "You gotta see the new ornaments Liv bought! There's a working light-saber, and a Darth Vader that tells you how many days there are till Christmas!"

Lizzie, his twin sister, ran over to her father and grabbed his hand. "She had one made for us, too! You gotta see it!" She pulled him over to the tinsel-laden tree and gently wrapped her hand around one of the pine branches. "See? It has all of our names on it. Well, except Mom, but I think that's why she got it in the first..." she looked up at her father, then, and stopped talking. "Daddy? Are you okay?"

With fresh tears in his eyes, he smiled as his youngest daughter and nodded. "I'm fine, sweetheart. I'm...better than fine." He looked over his shoulder at Olivia. "You, uh, you didn't put Kathy's name on it."

Olivia's face fell. "I didn't think you wanted her name on it," she said, suddenly embarrassed. "I'll take it back, I didn't think...I thought, this time, it was..."

"No, it's...it's great, I just..." he said, interrupting her. "You're name's not on it, either."

She raised one eyebrow. "Why the hell would I put my name on your family ornament?" She shook her head and rolled her eyes. "I think your kids are waiting for you to put the angel on the tree." She looked at Dickie, who had appeared by her side. She smiled at the twelve-year-old and brushed his hair back with her fingers.

Elliot couldn't take his eyes off of her, and watching her beaming smile, how she was with his kids, reassured him of the reason.

Olivia looked at the girls, and then back to Dickie. "You ready for Daddy to light this thing up?"

"Absolutely!" He folded his arms and looked over at his father, who still had his eyes glued to Olivia. "Uh, hello? Father?"

Lizzie slapped him in the side and whispered, "Daddy, stop staring at her. So rude."

Elliot blinked a few times before looking back down at his daughter. "Right, uh, sorry. Sorry." He bent down and took the porcelain angel in his hands. He walked around Lizzie, who had moved backward toward Olivia. He leaned into the tree a bit, stood up on his toes, and expertly slid the angel over the top bristles of the tree. "There we go," he said with a chuckle, and then he bent down, crawled under the tree a bit, and plugged it in, letting the lights blink to life. He stepped back and what he saw took his breath away.

He wasn't looking at the tree, but at Olivia, whose face had lit up along with the tree. She was surrounded by his kids, and they looked happier than he'd seen them in such a long time. He felt his heart thud against his chest and he knew that something he'd been fighting for so long had finally beaten him. The tears he'd been holding back rolled down his cheeks, catching in his stubble. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and walked over to stand with his children, moving Dickie to the side so he could take his place next to Olivia. He wrapped an arm around her waist and dropped his head against the side of hers. He placed two soft, sweet kisses to her neck, and when she turned to look at him, he smiled.

Olivia opened her mouth, but before she spoke, Maureen said, "That's got to be the most beautiful tree we've had in years."

"Yeah," Kathleen said, agreeing. "Liv picked out a great one."

Olivia ignored Elliot's abnormally affectionate gestures for the moment and looked at Kathleen. "I still don't know why you just wouldn't let me get the old one out of the attic, guys."

Dickie turned around. "We needed a new one, Liv." He bit his lip and thought for a moment. "We just...needed one that was...better. One that was...ours."

"Because the one in the attic belongs to who?" Olivia laughed, not following Dickie's logic.

Lizzie offered her own explanation. "He means...ours. Like...we love Mom, but that tree just...there's a lot of bad memories wrapped up in it, especially now. None of us could even stand to look at it. This one is, well...it's ours."

Maureen looked at her father, and then at Olivia. "You know that includes you, right, Liv? Whatever my mother may have said to you, or how she treated you, you've always been family."

Elliot felt Olivia stiffen in his hold, and his answer to it was to loop his other arm around her. "Hey," he whispered, "What's wrong?"

Olivia looked at him, an unreadable and unfamiliar expression in her eyes. "I'm not trying to take her place. I don't want your kids thinking that. I'm not gonna be...I mean, maybe they shouldn't get too attached to me, if Kathy comes back and you..."

"The only thing she's coming back for is the rest of her stuff," he cut her off and explained. "And they're already attached to you. Very. So am I, if that wasn't completely fucking obvious." He suddenly went white and fear seeped into every pore. "You're not...you're not going anywhere, are you? You're not leaving me. Us."

"Not now, El, I know you still need me here, but eventually...you look like you're gonna throw up." She cupped his face and searched his eyes. "Look at me. What's wrong? You okay?"

He nodded, trying to swallow the cry that had built in his throat. "Don't...don't leave me, Liv. After everything...I can't lose you, too."

She furrowed her brow. "I just told you I wasn't going anywhere," she said, taken aback. She pulled away from him but was stunned when her movements only made him hold onto her tighter. She was starting to be a little afraid. With another shift in his arms, which only made him pull her closer still, she gave him a worried look. "You...El, what's with you?"

He shook his head and kissed her forehead. "I can't...I can't explain, right now. I will, when I...when I can, but, God, just please, promise me, no matter what happens, I've got still got you."

"You got me," she said, nodding. "I'm not...I'm not going anywhere. I can't...I can't lose you, either." She tried to smile, but her heart broke as soon as the words left her mouth. After all, he wasn't hers to lose.

He smiled at her, dropped his forehead against hers again, and just as he was about to press his lips to her skin again, her cell phone rang. "Damn it," he hissed. He settled for kissing her cheek again, and watched as she dug her phone out of her pocket and answered the call.

"Benson," she said, finally pushing Elliot off of her. "No, I don't know why he isn't answering. Maybe his phone's dead." She looked at Elliot and made a gesture, pointing toward the bedroom.

"Oh, shit," he laughed, his eyes wide. His phone was laying in the middle of his mattress, where he'd thrown it.

She shook her head at him, trying not to laugh. "No, I'll go get him, it's fine. What have we got?" She moved over to the coat rack and saw Elliot run into the bedroom out of the corner of her eye. "No problem, Cap. We're on it." She turned, knowing Elliot had made his way back to her side. "We got a body on Seventh Avenue, definite sexual assault, and why haven't you told Cragen that I'm staying here with..."

"Liv," he said, stopping her as he pulled on his coat, "I'm hoping, by the time I have to tell him anything about this, or us, there'll be, uh, more to tell." He kissed her forehead again, and then shouted to his kids that they had to leave.

Olivia froze, her coat half on, wondering what, exactly, he meant.

 ** _Peace and Love_**

 ** _Jo_**

 ** _MarchCommaJo on Twitter_**


	3. Chapter 3

**_Law and Order: SVU is the intellectual property of Dick Wolf. The use of the characters, settings, and plotlines is not malicious. This is a work of fiction._**

It was well past three-in-the-morning, and she wasn't sure why she was awake. The hot cocoa in the mug nestled in her hands had gone cold, but she hadn't even noticed. Sitting in the large, cushy armchair with her knees to her chest, she stared at the twinkling lights on the tree. The way it lit the room, even though no other light was on at all, mesmerized her. As she exhaled, she let her eyes focus on one of the ornaments on the tree. One she had picked out, without thinking, because it meant something to her. The resin statue of a marine in uniform, saluting, stared back at her, his painted on blue eyes filled with imagined reverence. She sighed again, dropping her head back against the seat, and sipped her drink.

"Liv?" his voice broke into her thoughts, soft, curious. "What are you doing out here?"

"What are you?" she retorted, not turning to look at him, not even blinking. She took another sip and kept staring at the tree.

He toed is way over to her and peered down at her. "What's the matter?"

She frowned slightly and shrugged, shaking her head. "Nothing," she intoned. "What's the matter with you?"

He scoffed. "Stop asking me..." he scratched his chin and made a mildly offended and frustrated noise. "I rolled over and you...you weren't there."

She smiled, but it wasn't joy behind the expression. "Gonna have to get used to that, sooner or later."

"What?" he furrowed his brow and snapped. He pushed her back further on the chair and sat down, looped an arm around her, and kissed her cheek. "I do not," he said, completely serious. "Why aren't you in that room,in that warm bed with me?"

She let out another heavy breath. "I couldn't sleep," she said, "Every time I closed my eyes, I'd think about..." she stopped before saying another word. She turned only her eyes to look at him, sideways, and sipped her cold cocoa again. "I just...couldn't sleep."

"You still thinking about the case?" he asked, concerned. He moved his hand from her shoulder to her back and drew patterns in her skin with his palm.

She shook her head. "No, not...not that." She bit her lip and shifted in her seat. She shook slightly as the thought of telling him the truth ran through her head, but she chickened out. "I'll be all right. Go back to bed."

"Not without you," he told her.

There was something different in his voice. Something dark, almost dangerous, as if contradiction or refusal would ignite some sort of powerful flame she;d never be able to extinguish. Maybe she wouldn't even want to. She stifled a yawn as she leaned her head back. "You don't need me to..."

"Yes," he interrupted, firm and final. "I do." He got to his feet and held out a hand, and he smiled softly when her fingers fell into his open palm. Pulling her up, he asked, one more time, "What were you out here thinking about?" He grazed his lips over her temple. "Tell me."

A chill crept down her spine as his breath hit her ear, and she shivered again, almost losing her balance and falling into him. "You," she said; it was a reflex and she wished like hell she could take it back.

"What about me?" he questioned, lowering the tone of his voice and sending another heated exhalation right into her ear. He felt her tremble this time, and the arrogance in him shined as he smirked.

She swallowed back hard and shook her head, pulling away from him. Her bare feet carried her into the kitchen where she poured the remains of her cold hot chocolate down the drain and put her empty mug into the top rack of the dishwasher. "Don't worry about it. It's...nothing."

"If it's keeping you awake...and away from me, then it isn't 'nothing,' Liv, it's 'something' pretty damn important." He wrapped an arm around her waist and spun her around to look at him again, his other arm closing the circle and holding down the fort at the small of her back. "Whatever it is, please, just tell me, so we can talk it out and go back to sleep."

"There's nothing to talk about," she griped, rolling her eyes. "I just..." her gaze landed back on the saluting marine, standing proudly among the pine needles and tinsel. "I can't explain it. It's not like I'm expecting things to...change...but when we got into bed tonight, I could have sworn you said...something, and it's probably because you miss Kathy, and you thought that..."

"I said it," he interrupted. "To you. I don't...I don't miss Kathy. Not the way you're thinking." He sighed and rubbed his forehead, his hand trailing along in circles on her back. "I didn't say it to scare you, and I certainly didn't mean to make you..." he paused, his head dropping to one side. "What is that?"

"What's what?" her voice crack, knowing what he'd spotted on the tree behind her. She took a breath and held it as she watched him walk away from her, following his body with her eyes as he padded over to the green pine. "El, come on, you wanted to go back to..."

"Liv," he breathed, his fingers gingerly tilting the uniformed ornament so he could get a better look at it. Snapping his head toward her, he bit his lip and shook his head, puzzled. "I know you...better than I've ever known anyone, I can read you like a book, and I know how you're feeling by the look in your eyes. I could pick your shadow out of a line-up and I remember every haircut you've ever had. But this...this time, I'm fucking confused. Do you or don't you?"

Her eye widened. "Do I...what are you talking about?"

Letting the ornament fall back into place, he walked over to her again, resting his hands on her hips. "For the first time in my life, I'm so fucking confused by you. I've been trying to just do and say what I'm feeling, and sometimes you smile at me and I think 'yeah, okay, we're on the same page,' and other times you look at me like I'm hurting you somehow, and I can't..."

"What do you want from me, Elliot?" she questioned, it sounded more angry than she'd intended.

"I want to know why," he told her, his voice running colder now, but his eyes alight with fire. "When I called you...it was the middle of the goddamn night, you live a tunnel and two bridges away, and you fucking showed up on my doorstep without a second thought. You spent three weeks, three fucking weeks, cleaning and redecorating, and cooking like I have never seen anyone cook in my life, just so my kids would have a normal fucking Thanksgiving and forget that their mother abandoned them and took the fucking toaster! Oh! That! You took my daughters shopping, on Black Friday, not only because you knew how important that was to them, but so you could replace everything Kathy took with her! You baked cookies, and bought us a new tree, and new ornaments, one that...Liv, that fucking looks like me! I want to know why you did all of this, and I want to know now!"

Stunned at his loud rant, she felt tears stinging at her eyes. "I'm sorry...I didn't..."

"Sorry?" he scoffed, shaking his head again. He pulled her closer. "God, why are you sorry? I'm not...I'm not angry, I'm...I don't have the words, I can't tell you how much all of it means to me, but I need you to tell me why."

Blinking and fighting back tears, she cleared her throat and said, "Friends do that for each other. You're my partner."

"Friends?" he chuckled. "Friends take each other to the bar and get each other laid to forget shit like this." He lowered his voice, almost a whisper, his tone softer. He leaned closer to her, his nose brushing hers again. "What you've done...what you're doing...tell me why," his voice broke slightly, the only indication that he was scared. "I need to know...because I think...I think I know, but then you...you make me think I'm wrong, and I can't handle being wrong about this."

Her eyes were wide open, she was staring into his. A tear rolled down her cheek and she sniffled once before offering her trembling response. "You're not wrong," she spoke, a hair above a whisper. "I just...I thought you were still..." she stopped talking, noticing the smile on his face and the relief in his eyes. "We can't do this now. You're going through a lot, and I'm going to be here, I promise, but if we..." her voice cracked. She took another deep breath, which caught in the back of her throat. Her eyes searched his, and the deeper blue that swirled in them filled her with warmth. The heat behind his eyes could only mean one thing, and she couldn't help smiling, finally admitting it. "If you knew how long I've waited for you to look at me like that..."

"I've been looking at you like this for years," he interrupted. "You just ignored it, because you thought you had to, right?" His hands slipped up her body, back down, caressing her. He began swaying with her, from side to side, as if moving to a sweet melody. "We don't have to ignore anything now."

She let out a small squeak, her eyes widening slightly. Shaking a bit, she moved her own hands to the small of his back, and suddenly it was as if she could hear the same imagined music he did. Closing her eyes, she dropped her head into his chest.

He moved in slow circles, dancing her out of the living room. He guided her into the bedroom and stopped moving. "Hey," he whispered.

Her head popped up and she was caught by surprise as he placed a lightning fast kiss on her lips. He grinned slyly, seeing her freeze, and while she was lost in her own head, he managed to pull her back into bed. He let her roll onto her side and then wriggled up against her, his slight erection now nestled against the curve of her ass. He moaned softly as he felt her shift and wiggle backward, closer. He curled his body around her. "This is what you were afraid of, isn't it? Why you got out of bed?"

Closing her eyes and letting out a slow, shaky breath, she told him. "Yeah," she sighed. "I heard you, and I wanted to say it back, but I couldn't. And then you kept moving closer, and I knew...that if I didn't get up, we'd...end up like this."

He cuddled her close and kissed her cheek. "That was kind of the idea," he said as he grabbed her hand and linked their fingers. "You keep telling me not to say anything, or do anything about this, you think I'm kidding or just rebounding from Kathy leaving, but...when I realized you weren't in bed with me, my heart stopped. I thought you left, and I couldn't breathe." He kissed the back of her head. "None of this is new, you know. It's just been buried, suppressed. With you being here...I've had time to realize how incredibly real everything I've been feeling for you for years truly is, how undeniably happy it all makes me, and it all...it means something." He took a breath and he kissed her one last time before closing his eyes and tightening his grip on her. "I think...no, I know...I'm in love..."

Her cell phone killed the rest of his confession as it rang from its spot on the end table.

She leaped off the bed, shaken by the noise, and her heart was racing fast, because of what Elliot was about to say to her. She sat up sharply and grabbed for her phone. "Benson," she said, it came out scratchy. She turned to look at him and all hope of sleep had gone out the frosted window. "Yeah, I'll call him now," she said, rolling her eyes. "Bye."

"What?" He spat the word out, pissed off that his moment had been ripped away from him, and he needed to tell her the truth before Christmas. It was the one gift he promised for himself.

"Vic at Mercy General," she said, "She's not awake yet, but Cragen wants us to go collect the kit and talk to the parents."

He sighed, sat up, and looked into her eyes before taking a chance and moving toward her. He kissed her lips, this time lingering a bit longer. He smiled when she did, and he knew there was no more hiding, no more fighting.

They dressed fast and headed out, not bothering to wake the kids. It was going to be a long day, and, God willing, an even longer night.

 ** _Peace and Love_**

 ** _Jo_**

 ** _MarchCommaJo on Twitter_**


	4. Chapter 4

**_Law and Order: SVU is the intellectual property of Dick Wolf. The use of the characters, settings, and plotlines is not malicious. This is a work of fiction._**

"Ow! Damn it," Olivia seethed, popping the tip of her finger into her mouth. She shook her hand, rolled her eyes, and looked back down at the table. "Five more of these? What was I thinking?" She squeezed the trigger of the hot glue gun again, making a small mound of it on the inside of a jar cap.

Elliot, standing in the archway behind her, smiled as he watched her set a miniature Santa Claus and a large plastic letter "A" into the pile of glue. "What are you doing?" he asked, but he already knew the answer.

"Christmas gifts for the kids' teachers," she said, pouring silver glitter into a small mason jar. She eyed it for a moment, and then grabbed a pitcher of water and poured some into the jar. Kneeling a bit to gauge the level of liquid in the jar, she said, "They're homemade, personalized snow globes."

With a soft laugh, Elliot moved closer to her. He watched her fingers work quickly as they screwed the lid onto the jar.

She turned the jar upside down, shook it, and smiled as she held it out to him. "See?"

In his hand, he saw silver glitter snow down upon Santa and the letter, which, he assumed, stood for one of the teachers' names. "Where'd you learn how to make these?" Shaking it again, he laughed, amazed.

She shrugged. "I think I made one in an art class when I was a kid. I don't... I don't really remember."

He put the jar down onto the table and watched her hot-glue a red ribbon to the glass at the top. He slid it backward toward the group of finished globes, and he looked at her. "Just when I think I know how amazing you are, you prove me wrong."

"What?" she chuckled, grabbing another empty jar. She unscrewed the lid and turned it upside down, grabbed a plastic Christmas tree, another letter, and was about to glue them down, when Elliot grabbed her hand. "What are you..."

"You're making gifts...for my kids to give their teachers." He looked at her and smirked at the dry expression on her face. "Don't look at me like that, I...I know you know what you're doing, but I'm saying...you don't have to do this. Any of this." He brought her hand up to his lips and kissed her knuckles. "Thank you," he whispered.

She felt heat rise and fill her cheeks, and she pulled her hand away from him and turned back toward her craft before he could see her blush. "It's nothing." The glitter and water were poured into the jar quickly, and she squeezed some hot glue into the cap. She jammed the tree and initial into it and hoped they'd set faster. For some reason, now, she was jittery. "You, uh, you finish that 'Five Cragen pinned you with?"

"Yeah," he said, nodding and licking his lips. He moved closer to her and stepped behind her. "I even remembered to sign and initial every page," he chuckled. "You proud of me?"

She laughed and nodded. "Yeah, actually. I am." She toyed with a bit of ribbon as she formed her next few words. "You got a letter from your lawyer."

"What'd it say?" he asked, wrapping his arms around her waist. He felt her tense up a bit, but then relax into his hold.

She turned her head over her shoulder and furrowed her brows. "How the hell should I know?"

"You didn't read it?" he questioned, lowering his head and rocking with her.

"Are you...no! I didn't read it! Why would I read it?" she asked in a huff. She narrowed her eyes, made a soft scoffing sound, and put the lid on the jar, tightening it. After flipping it over, she reached for the glue gun, but Elliot beat her to it. She froze, watching as he squeezed the glue onto the glass. She put the ribbon, tied in a bow, into his blob of glue, and whispered, "Thanks."

He hummed a response into her ear, kissed the spot of skin right behind it, and then said, "You could have, you know. I wouldn't have cared. I would just tell you what it said, anyway, right? I have never kept any secrets from you." He kissed her cheek. "You know my social security number and the PIN to my debit card, so I'm pretty sure I can trust you with..."

"It was none of my business," she interrupted. "It was yours, and I didn't want to overstep..."

"You wouldn't have," he interrupted her right back. "I need you to get it through your head, we don't have boundaries, okay? You can open the mail, you can answer the phone, hell, you can fucking walk around here naked." He raised an eyebrow and his smirk grew a bit more. "Would you?"

She rolled her eyes, laughed, and playfully elbowed him in the stomach. She noticed it didn't make him loosen his hold on her, and she realized she didn't mind at all. "Well, now I know." She set off on making another snow globe and said, "It's on the table by the door."

He kissed her cheek again, sighed, and let go of her, turned, and walked toward the side table. He picked up the pile of mail, mumbling as he dropped the letters one at a time. "Bill, bill, bill, Christmas card from...oh, wow," he paused and said a little louder, "We got a card from Doctor Skoda."

"We?" she replied, one eyebrow arched high.

He nodded. "Seriously," he held up the red envelope. "It's addressed to me and you." He smirked. "He always knew, didn't he?"

She shook her head, almost sadly, and put the finishing touches on the last snow globe. "Yeah," she whispered, closing her eyes. When she opened them, she took a deep breath. She unplugged the glue gun and slowly walked over to Elliot, who, she had noticed, was reading the letter from his lawyer. "Is everything okay?" she asked hesitantly, reaching with a slightly shaking hand for his shoulder.

He nodded, though he was biting his lip hard and staring at the paper with a screwed up face. "Kathy wants full custody..." he started, but his voice broke. He cleared his throat, relaxed his face, and handed the letter to Olivia. "My lawyer said the same thing you did," he told her. "This was planned, premeditated, whatever. She doesn't stand a chance." He turned around fully and exhaled harshly as he wrapped himself around her again. "She's got a shot at joint, though, which means my kids have to bounce back and forth..."

"Only if they want to," she said, pushing him back a little. "You didn't finish reading this. He said Judge McAllister wants written statements from the kids, telling him who they prefer to live with. You have to know...after everything that's happened, they're gonna say you."

"And you," he whispered, and he looked into her eyes for a moment. Something about the way her eyes shined, the way the blinking tree lights reflected in her hair and gave her an almost surreal glow, and the way she was looking at him, so hopeful, so warm, it all made him sure that this had to be the moment, this had to be it. He leaned into her, pressed his lips to hers, and pulled her body into him.

The letter fell out of her hand onto the floor, her arms rose and her hands fell limply over his shoulders as she kissed him back. Slowly, deeply, forgetting to think about risks or consequences, just following the one thing she refused to listen to until now: her heart.

His hands slid lower on her body and swooped under her shirt. He moaned, loving the way her skin felt against his, under his touch. He splayed his palms over her bare back and swiped his tongue across her lips as he changed the angle of their kiss. Moaning again, he pulled her even closer, lifting her off of her feet a bit as he wrapped his arms around her and dragged himself toward the open bedroom door.

They felt the stumbling, they tripped over each other's feet, they laughed into their kiss, and they finally landed on the bed with a plop and a happy sounding pair of chuckles. Their hands seemed to take on the task of exploration, smoothing over the curves and edges of each other, finding paths up shirts and into waistbands. All the while, their kiss remained unbroken.

Until a horrified voice called to them from the living room. "Dad!"

Elliot pulled away from Olivia sharply, shot up off the bed, and ran as if his life depended on it. "What?" he cried, panicked. "What happened?"

Kathleen stood in the middle of the room, one hand over her mouth, the other clutching the letter that had fallen out of Olivia's hand. Unable to speak, she simply brandished the paper in her father's direction.

His eyes closed and he sighed slowly. He took a few steps toward his daughter and grabbed both of her shoulders. "Honey, I'm gonna fight like hell for you, you have to know that I want...I need you here. You and..." he waited a moment, unsure of the reaction he would get from his middle child.

"Liv," Kathleen whispered, dropping her hand. "This letter...it says we have to write letters to the judge. Do we? I mean, can we?" She looked tearfully at her father. "I need to be here, with you and Liv, too." She threw her arms around her father, unaware that Olivia had been standing in the doorway of the bedroom, stunned into still silence, and hearing every single word.

"Yeah," Elliot told her with a nod, holding her tightly. "Yeah, you can write whatever you want to him. You...you want to stay here? With me? Me and...you said me and Liv?"

Kathleen nodded. "We kind of all agreed...wait, she...she's not leaving, is she?" She paled and her eyes widened. "We just started to feel normal again, like...like a..." she swallowed her words. "She can't go, Dad." She shook her head. "If we get to stay, she has to...she just has to."

"I know," he said on a breath. "I'm working on it." He let out a soft laugh and said, "You really want her to stay?"

"Dad," Kathleen said, as if he had just asked her if she was sure the sky was blue, "We all do. I thought...I thought we were making that pretty clear. With Mom gone, we...well, me, Maureen, and Lizzie at least, we need her, you know?" Her eyes dropped. "It's easier if she's here, instead of having to call her and hope we aren't interrupting something, or waking her up. And we kind of...know."

Elliot narrowed his eyes and backed up a bit. "You know what?"

Kathleen looked at her father, a small smile spreading across her face. "We know you're in love with her."

He gasped. His eyes widened. Slowly, he turned around, having heard someone else breathe a little too loudly, and his eyes landed on her stunned face. He offered her a soft smile and shrugged. And as he was about to tell her that she didn't have to say anything, he saw her face light up and she returned his smile. His heart gave a hard thud and he knew, Kathleen had just given him his Christmas present a few days early.

 ** _Peace and Love_**

 ** _Jo_**

 ** _MarchCommaJo on Twitter_**


	5. Chapter 5

**_Law and Order: SVU is the intellectual property of Dick Wolf. The use of the characters, settings, and plotlines is not malicious. This is a work of fiction._**

"Okay," he said, running over to Olivia, unsure of what the expression on her face meant. "So...yeah...um," he looked back at his daughter. "Katie, we'll talk about that letter tomorrow, okay? Just..." he pointed at the stairs and looked up, hoping it would be enough to tell her to go up to her room. He waited, watching the teen slink away. Once he heard the soft closing of her door, he sighed, closed his eyes, and hesitantly turned back to Olivia. "She, um, she was...right."

"Yeah," Olivia whispered, looking down at her feet. She bit her lip, scraping it through her teeth, and padded softly over to the couch. She sat, rubbed her palms over her knees, and turned her head up when she heard him clear his throat and watched him bend and sit beside her. "I...I figured that's what you've been trying to tell me, but...I just assumed you were..."

"On some kind of rebound?" He looked at her with confusion and disbelief in his eyes. He let his hand fall to her hand on her knee, linking his fingers with hers. "You know me better than that. You also...know...that I've been trying to tell you for years."

"I thought...maybe I was just imagining things, making more of them than there was," she confessed. "My heart would stop when you said something...or looked at me a certain way, and I would wonder if you wanted..." she paused. "But then I'd remember you were married, and I was probably being stupid."

He smiled. "You're the smartest person I know," he whispered. "I know, you don't have to tell me...I see it in your eyes, and I feel it whenever I'm with you." He pulled her hand up to meet his lips and kissed each fingertip. "I was trying...so hard...to ignore it, to be whatever it was that you needed me to be, to be the man I had to be for my family." He looked out of the corner of his eye, smirked, and reached for a remote control on the coffee table. He pushed a few buttons, and in an instant, the fireplace roared to life. He pulled her up as he rose to his feet, guiding her closer to the flames. He sat on a patch of soft carpet and tugged her down to meet him. With a sigh, he pulled her closer to him, wrapped his body and arms around her, resting his chin on her shoulder. "Kathy leaving...it wasn't such a horrible thing. The way it happened fucking sucked, the fact that she planned it...it fucking pisses me the hell off that she had a place already, but I can't help feeling kind of like I owe her. She...did me a favor." He turned his head, looked into her eyes, and whispered, "She gave me you."

Her breath hitched and her heart thumped hard, once, against her chest. She blinked at him. "What do you..."

"She's the reason...you're here. I'm not going to let myself be miserable over a failed marriage when...when it wasn't even a marriage anymore." He exhaled and rested his head back on her shoulder. He stared Ito the flickering flames, letting the crackling and hissing fill the air for a moment. "I left her long before she walked out."

Her eyes narrowed. "How?"

He smiled and dropped a soft kiss behind her ear. "I have been in love with you, wanted you, longed for you, for so long, that I haven't been her husband in years." He waited a moment and then narrowed his eyes as he added, "I've been more like yours."

She laughed when he said it, but there was a seriousness in his tone that told her he wasn't kidding. She quieted and let herself fall into him as he held her by the fire. "So...I heard Kathleen tell me. She kind of stole your thunder, but, uh, if you want to tell me, I'm listening."

He chuckled, and then one hand rose from its home around her waist and his thumb and index finger pitched her chin lightly. He turned her head toward his, looked into her eyes, and whispered, so softly, "I love you."

She had asked him to say it, she'd wanted to hear it from his lips, but it didn't prevent the fear and anxiety that built up in response. She trembled in his arms and felt him pull her tighter. She moaned, his warmth radiating and enveloping her. Mentally, she was screaming at herself to tell him what she'd only ever dreamed of being able to admit out loud, but all she could manage to do was bend her head slightly and kiss him.

His hand grazed upward from her chin to her cheek, and he made it his job to deepen the kiss. He wrapped his large hand around the nape of her neck and moaned softly as he was granted glorious admission when she parted her lips for him.

She couldn't help it, she was lost to him, in him, and her arms twisted and curled around his neck. She returned every soft gasp and whimpering moan, kissing him back fervently.

He pushed, his body urging hers to move, and he flattened her out on the rug. He shifted his weight, covering her, keeping his lips working with hers. One leg taught it's way between hers as her thigh nestled between his. With a rock of his hips, they let out simultaneous moans of each other's name, followed by a short, shared laugh.

Her hands knotted in the fabric of his shirt, every nerve in her body singing the Hallelujah Chorus, begging him to give her more and praying he'd stop at the same time. Drafting her words in her head before she uttered them, she peeled her lips away from his, moaning and bucking her body upward against his as his lips and teeth found her pulse at her neck. "I love you, too," she panted, and then let out a louder moan. His knee had pressed into her sensitive heat and she felt his hardness rock against her thigh.

He whispered something into her ear that gave her chills, and then returned his lips to hers and kissed her with more powerful purpose than before, hoping she'd feel it all. He ran his hands up and down the sides of her face, her neck, the sides of her body, exploring, feeling every inch of her he could without crossing the line he wasn't even sure still existed. He rocked against her again, a grunt falling from his lips as he tilted his head. "So fucking long," he mumbled, more to himself than to her, unable to blur the boundary between his thoughts and his words.

"I know," she breathed, moaning as she felt him rub his knee against her, a bit harder. "God, Elliot, I know." Her nails began to dig into his skin beneath his shirt, she let out a whimper that sounded needy and imploring, and she moved this time, purposely rubbing against his now-very-obvious erection.

"Fuck," he spat, ripping his lips away from hers. "Liv, baby, we should..." his body betrayed his words, rocking into her harder, pressing deeper into her. He gripped her hips and with a soft but ferocious growl, he flipped them over, settling her on top of him, fitting her body against his. He took two slow breaths, attempting to calm his wracked nerves and eager body. He exhaled to a count of ten, easing his kiss to a languidity that seemed to wash over both of them. His fingers gently toyed with the waistband of her pants and the part of his brain that was still fully functional registered the howling of wind through the trees outside.

She heard it, too, and her head popped up to look out the large window behind the lit tree. "It's snowing, El," she whispered, and then looked back down at him with a soft smile.

He bit his lip as he became more lost in her eyes. "You and me," he said, nodding once, "We're calling in sick tomorrow." He looped his hand around her neck again and pulled her back toward him, kissing her hungrily.

Laughing, she pushed herself back up. "Are you insane? We can't take off the day before Christmas, not both of us, Cragen will..."

"Cragen will have to understand that I am going through a very traumatic divorce," he said, smirking, his words lightly soaked in sarcasm. "My kids are coming home from school early tomorrow, their mother won't be here, and I need to be here for them in their time of need. They're handling this...very very badly."

She raised an eyebrow and gave him a crooked grin, tilting her head.

He ran his hands through her hair and couldn't stop the smile from pulling at his lips. "At least, that's what I'm telling Cragen," He kissed her softly, gently, and said, "And, of course, I need you with me to make sure I don't break down...or kill Kathy." He winked at her. "You...you really have, you know that?"

"Have what?" she questioned, falling to the side and wrapping herself around him. Her hand traced the outline of his muscles beneath his shirt as she looked at him, waiting for an answer.

Still toying with her hair, he said, "You kept me from breaking." He shook his head and smiled again. "You've always been the one that's kept me from falling apart, kept me grounded...whole. Even when I didn't even know I needed it." He sat up a bit, resting on one elbow, the other hand curling in her hair. He moved closer to her, closed her eyes, and breathed her in, and then he spoke. "Please, tell me I've done the same for you."

"You know you have," she whispered to him. She pressed her lips to his, pulling away before things grew out of control again. "So, uh, what are we doing tomorrow, besides pissing off our boss."

He laughed, looked around the living room, and said, "We are going to do some last minute shopping, I want you to bake more of those cookies because, damn, baby, they're amazing," he kissed her quickly. "And then...you and I, and the kids, are going to lounge around in matching pajamas, watch cheesy Christmas movies, and we are going to spend Christmas Eve...together."

She saw something deep in his eyes, something that scared her, thrilled her, and made her believe in Santa Claus all over again, She'd made a wish, years ago, and it was beginning to look a lot like it was finally coming true.

 _ **Peace and Love**_

 _ **Jo**_

 _ **MarchCommaJo on Twitter**_


	6. Chapter 6

**_Law and Order: SVU is the intellectual property of Dick Wolf. The use of the characters, settings, and plotlines is not malicious. This is a work of fiction._**

"The stockings were hung by the chimney with care..." she mumbled almost inaudibly, running her index finger along the edges of the fur lined Christmas stocking emblazoned with her name. She still didn't understand why Elliot insisted on hanging one for her; she wasn't part of their traditions.

"Hey," a voice called, snapping her out of her pensive moment. "We're starting it."

She turned with a sigh and a smile, and nodded at Dickie, who was waving her over to the spot between himself and his father on the couch. She laughed, then, marveling at how adorable the family looked in matching red and white striped pajamas. Looking down as she took her seat, she stopped laughing. She was wearing them, too, and suddenly, it was less adorable and more terrifying.

Beside her, Elliot grinned and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer. He caught her eyes and something wordless yet powerful passed between them. He gave her a short kiss on her forehead and pushed the button on the remote, starting the third and final movie of the night.

She relaxed into him, and as she brought her left hand into his lap, she smiled. She felt him grab her hand, entwine their fingers, and for the first time, she felt as though it was normal. It was right.

Kathleen, on the floor in front of the couch, leaned her head back and rested it against Olivia's knee as she began speaking the lines of the movie with the characters.

Lizzie, the youngest girl, rolled her eyes and looked over her shoulder at her father. "She does this every year! It's like having the movie in surround sound! I might actually kill her this time."

Without missing a beat, Elliot said, "No murder on Christmas Eve." He turned to Olivia and, seeming unconcerned with his children seeing him, he gave her another soft kiss, this time on the end of her nose.

Maureen rolled her eyes but smiled, and had just turned her attention back to the television, when the doorbell rang. Her head snapped back to her father. "It's almost midnight..." she proffered.

Elliot's eyes narrowed as he shifted, moving Olivia away from him so he could get up. "Maybe Santa's early," he joked, but he instinctively pulled his gun out of the drawer of the end table. He looked at Olivia. "Stay here," he told her, serious.

She stayed but she watched him intently, keeping her focus as he walked to the door and opened it slowly. She didn't have to see who was on the other end, she knew by the way he stiffened and puffed outward that it was Kathy.

Kathleen was the one to break the news. "It's Mom."

At her words, all of the kids were now watching the foyer and not Will Ferrel. "Is he letting her come in?" Dickie asked, leaning his elbows on Olivia's shoulders.

She simply shrugged. "I don't know," she said softly, hoping the answer was no. The last thing she needed tonight was Kathy walking in to see her in a pair of the family jammies.

The question was answered on its own; Elliot closed the door and turned, walking back into the living room. He paused, seeing five pairs of eyes staring at him, concerned. He sheepishly held up a large shopping bag. "She...she dropped off your gifts. I told her it wasn't a good time for her to...she, uh...she didn't forget about you guys."

"None of us really thought she would," Dickie said, climbing down off of Olivia and then off the couch all together. "It's a little late, though."

Elliot let out a hard breath, setting the bag of presents down on the floor beside the couch. He fell back into his seat and took hold of Olivia's hand. "She thought you guys were already asleep."

"Oh," Maureen said. She smiled, though, and got up off of the floor. "I get it."

Lizzie rose to her knees and looked at her dad. "One less place we have to go tomorrow. No big deal." She got to her feet and folded her arms. "We'll still have nine-million people to see."

Elliot laughed and turned to Olivia. "It's gonna be a long day, baby." He winked and kissed her. "Your first full Stabler Christmas experience."

Olivia chuckled and rolled her eyes, but kissed him back.

Kathleen yawned, ignoring the moment between her father and his partner. "Well, this kinda ruined the whole movie for me."

Maureen nodded, grabbing the remote and turning off the TV. "I'm tired, anyway. We have to get up early tomorrow." She kissed her father on the cheek. "Now, you two need to go to sleep soon, too, or Santa won't come." She chuckled and gave Olivia a kiss on the cheek, too. "Goodnight."

"Night," Olivia said, stunned.

There were more hugs and kisses and after the last child was upstairs and out of sight, Olivia turned to Elliot. "Are you okay?"

He nodded. "I'm perfect," he said with a grin. But then he yawned. "Kid was right. We should go to bed."

"You sure you don't want to finish watching this?" She watched his skin turn colors as the blinking tree lights bounced off of him.

"I hate this movie," he said, his voice gravelly. Clearing his throat, he kissed her cheek. He sighed and then smiled. "You talked to them, right? Did we get everything they told you they wanted?"

"Yes," she said, chuckling at his sudden worry over missing a gift. "We have had them wrapped for weeks," she said, "I just hope you get what you want. You've always been a hard guy to shop for. You don't need clothes, since you love to shop more than I do, and I didn't want to get you..."

"Liv, really," he laughed. "You have already given me everything, I...you refurnished half the house, have kept me and the kids from falling apart, you don't have to get...It's Christmas Eve, and..." He stood up and pulled her hand, making her follow. "I have everything I need. My kids are all here, happy, and I have you..." he blinked as his words failed him. He tilted his head and his eyes fell. "I do have you, right?"

She reached up with one hand and softly cupped the side of his face. She smiled and nodded. "Always," she said to him. "You always have. And...as long as you...want me, you always will."

"Best Christmas Eve ever," he said with a laugh, pulling her close to him. He kissed her sweetly and said, "You...you know, you always had me, too. If you ever...I mean, if you had so much as hinted at the possibility of anything...happening..." He stopped, sighed, and scratched a few fingers against his scalp. "This could've started a long time ago. I could have been this happy, you could have..."

"It's happening now," she interrupted. "Are you really happy?"

He nodded, pulling her tighter to him, rocking with her slightly. "Are you?"

"I am," she said. "I'm scared shitless," she laughed, "But I'm happy." She blinked once at him and then she moved in, pressing her lips to his.

His eyes were still closed when she pulled away, and he moaned slightly in protest, pulling her back for another, longer kiss. He let out a soft grunt when he felt both her hands at the sides of his face, and he wrapped his arms around her, bent slightly at the knees, and lifted her up.

Still kissing him, she wrapped her legs around him and took the ride to the bedroom. Feeling her back hit the door, she whimpered, but chuckled when he growled and finally twisted the knob.

They fell into the room, stumbling their way to the bed, and as difficult as it was, they managed to tug away their striped pajama pants without peeling their lips apart. Bare legs began to tangle, and a shared laugh filled the small spaces between them.

She unbuttoned his shirt slowly and eased it away from his shoulders and coaxed it off of him, deepening both their kiss and her moans.

He shivered, feeling her hands sweep down his chest, her fingertips grazing lightly over his skin. With shaking hands, he reached for the buttons of her top, knowing they'd gone too far to stop, realizing everything would change, and not minding either.

She looped her hands around his body, one at his back and the other curled around his neck, pulling him closer to her. Her breath hitched when the last button popped and she froze when he pulled away. Biting her lip, she watched his face as he prayed the striped cotton off of her body.

He stared, licking his lips, his eyes lighting up more the longer he looked at her. He seemed to be in a trance, under a spell, as his fingers lightly trailed along her skin, rounding her curves and teasing her nipples. He was amazed by how perfect every inch of her truly was, and he swallowed back hard when he moved in to kiss her again.

She gasped when she felt his hands traveling, tracing delicate shapes in her skin on the way to explore her.

One of his hands found its way between her legs, and he moaned, low and satisfied, when he found her wet, hot, and perfect. "Is this...are you..." he tried to speak but his voice seemed to be as nervous as he was.

Her reply was another deep kiss and a small arch of her back. She let out a higher-pitched moan, her back and hips rising to him more, when one thick finger sunk into her.

He curled his finger, twisting, feeling, and he moaned into her mouth as he pressed another digit into her and began to move them faster.

Lost to him, she dug her nails into his skin and bit his bottom lip lightly. She felt him growing harder, bigger against her, and one of her hands slipped down to wrap around his dick.

He gasped at her contact, and then groaned when she started stroking him. Tears threatened the backs of his eyes, his nose burned. He couldn't believe his ultimate fantasy was coming to life, that he was with her, like this. He moved, then, knowing if they kept up the teasing and delicious exploration, he'd lose it all too soon.

She whined when he tore his fingers from her, arching her back again, needing him. But her heart stopped when she felt him moving, shifting his weight and flattening over her.

He swatted her hand away from his cock and guided it to where he so desperately needed to be, and he bent his head to kiss her. He let his lips and tongue dance slowly with hers for a long moment, feeling his heart beat soundly against his reins as if trying to break free.

Slowly, he inched his hips forward, pushing his way into her, sliding home. A shudder rolled through him and a trembling breath escaped as he whispered, "God, Liv, I love you."

With closed eyes and a shivering body, she gripped him tighter and said, "I love you."

He moved, then, slowly at first, easing out and thrusting in, savoring every second and trying to feel every single bit of it. She was hit, tight, perfection and for a moment he felt as thought he didn't deserve to be where he was. He kissed her, a bit more eager and a bit more firm, and he told himself that he was the only one who would ever know what she feels like, sounds like, tastes like, for the rest of her life.

"Oh, Elliot," she purred into his ear, her body rising to meet every thrust. Her hands played at his skin, running along bends and dips, teasing twitching muscles. He was reaching parts of her no one ever had, physically and emotionally, and she knew he'd be the only one who ever would. "Oh, my God," she cried softly, her eye widening as he sped up and began to hit harder, deeper.

"Liv," he seethed, now gritting his teeth, "God, fuck, yes, baby." He crashed his lips into hers again, kissing her with more fire, more force.

Hungrily gnashing teeth together, biting at lips, clawing at each other's skin, the slapping sounds from their working bodies and mouths filled the room. She was the first to give a warning moan. A low, long, "Elliot."

He felt her tightening, and his grin grew evil. He kissed her feverishly, rose up a bit onto his knees, and found the leverage he needed to pound into her harder, faster, fighting through her clampdown.

"Oh, my God, Elliot," she moaned again, a higher tone in softer voice. She felt her muscles begin to seize, her arms tightened around him and her nails curled, sinking deeper into his skin.

"Baby," he said hoarsely, "Come on, baby. I need to...to watch...watch you," he grunted, straining to keep his eyes opened and focused.

She felt him slide into her again, hitting several nerves that were already alight with intense pressure, and she clung to him tighter. "Elliot, yes, oh my God!" Her words were quiet screams, her body wracked and writhing under his.

"Oh, fuck, yes, baby," he growled, clenching his jaw and his ass, fighting through her tightness to give her one more. He felt it build and when she almost flew up off of the bed completely, he knew he'd succeeded. Grinning smugly he slowed a bit to let her ride it out, on the edge himself. He saw her eyes roll back, heard his name fall from her lips, and felt her pulsate around him again. "Liv," he choked out, once, before losing his own battle. He slammed into her hard every time his cock jerked with release, not wanting their moment to end. "Fuck," he hissed, finally hitting into her one last time, and stilling.

Breathing heavily, she reached a weak arm up around his neck and pulled him down to kiss him. She moaned as he rolled them over, feeling him twitch inside of her as they sunk into the mattress. She kissed him, making it long, slow, and tender.

His fingers curled into her hair and he whispered against her lips, "I love you."

She pulled away, panting, and rested her slick forehead against his. "I love you, too, El." She pecked his lips again, and then smiled. "Merry Christmas."

 ** _Peace and Love_**

 ** _Jo_**

 ** _MarchCommaJo on Twitter_**


	7. Chapter 7

**_Law and Order: SVU is the intellectual property of Dick Wolf. The use of the characters, settings, and plotlines is not malicious. This is a work of fiction._**

"I miss the tree," Elliot said, sipping from a mug of hot coffee. He was leaning against the kitchen counter, wearing nothing but blue flannel pajama bottoms. He looked around, sighing as he noticed how bare the room looked without all of the Christmas decorations. "We should have left it up. At least, until New Year's Eve."

Olivia made a non-committal noise, pouring a cup for herself. She rubbed the desire to sleep out of her eyes as she raised the mug to her lips.

With a furrowed brow, he looked at her and tilted his head. "You okay?" he asked, taking a few steps toward her.

She nodded, avoiding getting too close. "Still reeling from Carter's confession...he really got under my skin." She took another sip of coffee and closed her eyes, caving and moving toward him. She dropped her head to his chest and felt his hand move in circles over her back.

He kissed the top of her head and whispered, "You sure that's all that's bothering you?" He felt her nod against his body and he reached behind him to put his coffee down. "We got wrapped up in work, spent the last couple of nights at the station, so we never really..."

"El," she interrupted, looking up at him, "One thing I love about us...is we don't really need to talk about it. It feels...right...with you. And if you're about to ask me if I regret..." She paused, blinked, and smiled at him. "The only thing I regret is that we waited so long."

"God, me, too," he laughed. "Though, I'm grateful we don't have to suffer any eternal damnation. Or the wrath of Kathy. I'm not exactly sure which would be worse." He heard her laugh, looked down at her, and kissed her lips softly. "Are we going to that thing tomorrow night?"

"The party?" She shrugged and sipped her coffee. "If you want to. Though, uh, we may have some explaining to do after midnight. I have every intention of kissing you and I don't care who's watching."

He let out a hard laugh and kissed her again, but when he saw her smile fading, he had to ask. "What's wrong? Don't lie to me, Liv."

"Nothing, I just..." she bit her lip and rolled her eyes. It was moments like this she hated how easily he could read her. "I just...oh, hell, I had a dream...last night, up in the crib," she admitted. Her cheeks burned and she knew she was blushing. She stretched an arm out and dropped her coffee down beside his, then let her hands fold together around his neck. "I woke up and I couldn't...I couldn't shake it. All day, I kept remembering it...feeling it...and then, the thought of coming back here, being with you in bed, it just...

He smirked even more broadly and he cut her off with a chuckle. "What kind of dream?" he asked, licking his lips. He held her tighter and his eyes narrowed, a smirk creeping across his face.

"Oh, Jesus, you and your fucking ego," she complained. "I couldn't help it, okay? It was a dream, and I control what happens in my..."

"So, tell me what happened," he prodded, pulling her closer. His rather large and solid bulge rubbed against her in the perfect spot, he'd done it deliberately. and his eyes darkened as he looked down at her and waited for her answer.

She gulped again, staring back at him, noting that his eyes never left hers. God damn it, she couldn't lie to him. "We were...this is fucking embarrassing."

"I had a dream once," he told her, giving his hips another thrust. "We were at work, some fucking overnight-bullshit-case, we got into a fight about Cabot not getting us the right warrant or something, I don't really remember." He chuckled and dropped a kiss to her forehead. "Anyway, we're really ripping into each other, calling each other every name in the book, throwing these daggers and it...it got violent. You slapped me, and I lost it, I grabbed you and threw you up against the wall, and I kissed you...it got kinda...heated, and before I knew it we were fucking on the table in the interrogation room." He looked into her eyes and again he rolled his body into hers, his cock even harder now that he'd been recalling his dream. "When I woke up...I had to take a cold shower, and it didn't even help, and every time I looked at you, that whole day, I saw you, naked, pinned between me and the grey plaster in the squad room." He bucked against her again. "Fuck, I loved that dream." He kissed her again. "But my dreams...didn't do it justice. Baby, God, the real thing is so much fucking better." He winked and laughed, pressing his lips to hers again.

She moaned, feeling him move against her, hitting the perfect point on her body that made her nervous system sing. "El," she almost gasped.

"I'm not embarrassed about it," he told her with a shrug. A grin graced his lips. "That is along the lines of the dream you had, right? Well, you can tell me. I'm obviously not gonna complain about it." He took a few steps, leading her out of the kitchen.

"It's ridiculous, really," she said, biting her lip. "I don't even know why I...I didn't even know you when you..."

"Babe," he said, stopping her with a lightning fast kiss on her lips. "Just tell me." He walked her into the bedroom and made sure the door closed behind them. He kept his eyes on hers as he pushed his pants down around his hips, letting them fall.

"Jesus," she breathed, her fingers running along the sharp lines of his muscles, trailing over his pelvis, teasing his length.

"Fuck," he gritted out, moving his own hands to her body, pulling at her clothes. "You gonna talk about your dream or are we gonna make it come true?" he teased, yanking her bottoms down

"Both," she breathed, letting her fingertips trickle back up his body.  
She shook slightly, feeling his fingers slide between her legs. With a tremble, she told him. "You were still in the marines, on some base in California, and I guess...I was your girlfriend, or wife, or...something. You'd written me all these letters...these intense, and, uh, explicit letters. I was reading one of them, and someone knocked on my door. I answered it, and it was you, in your uniform. You didn't even let me say anything you just...threw me over the back of the sofa and..." she felt herself overheating in several places. "I couldn't shake it, every time I looked at you tonight, I remembered, and I could feel you...everywhere."

He let out what sounded like a growl. "I know all about that," he said. "I flinch every time you so much as brush against me on your way to get coffee, and it's worse now that...now that I know what it really feels like...to love you." He grabbed the hem of her top and pulled it up, over her head, and then tossed it into the hamper, unconcerned with which side it fell into.

She froze when he looked at her, a hunger in his eyes she knew had always been there, but realizing now he had every intention of feeding. Her eyes fluttered shut when his hands cupped her bare breasts, fingers circling and pinching her nipples.

"I wish it was you," he whispered, flatten his palms and smoothing them over her hardened nipples. "The one I wrote letters to, the one I was coming home to." He looked into her eyes, the lustful hunger now hidden behind a much more profound emotion. He pulled her into his arms, kissed her deeply, slowly, and moved them onto the bed. He flattened back and pulled her on top of him, keeping their kiss languid and powerful. He pulled away and looked up at her, smiling. "I come home to you now. And there's nothing in the world that means..."

"I know," she said, cutting him off, and she dropped her head to kiss him, slowly inching her body over his and sinking onto him. "I love you."

"God," he said, squeezing his eyes shut in pleasure as she sheathed him fully. "I love you, too, baby."

 ** _Peace and Love_**

 ** _Jo_**

 ** _MarchCommaJo on Twitter_**


	8. Chapter 8

**_Law and Order: SVU is the intellectual property of Dick Wolf. The use of the characters, settings, and plotlines is not malicious. This is a work of fiction._**

"Well," Elliot sighed, walking over to Olivia and handing her a glass of champagne, "I'm officially divorced. Leave it to Mason to ruin a good party by handing me legal documents."

She took a small sip from her glass, her arms folded, and said, "This isn't a good party. And that's...that's a good thing, right? Everything is...over."

"Not everything," he said with a small grin. "Some things...are just beginning." He winked at her and sipped his own champagne, mentally noting the ways he could get her out of her slinky red dress before dawn.

"Oh, do I need to get a fire extinguisher?" a voice cracked, breaking through their silence.

Olivia turned to see Alex Cabot, a friend and colleague, standing beside her with a martini in her hand. She looked menacing, her gaze flitting from Olivia to Elliot. "What?" Olivia finally replied.

Alex chuckled. "The look you two just gave each other...there were a lot of sparks there." She shrugged and took a sip of her drink. "Just saying."

"Have another martini, Alex," Olivia said, rolling her eyes. "Maybe you'll drink yourself back to sober."

"Oh, please," Alex spat back. "Deny it all you want, but, uh, I know what I'm seeing here. It's New Year's Eve, you two should make a couple resolutions...and you know what they say about that midnight kiss." She leaned into Olivia and lowered her voice. "And if you're trying to keep him at arms length because of his wife, you should know, as of this morning, he's single."

Olivia smirked and suppressed the urge to laugh. "You really don't know anything, do you?" She sipped her champagne and turned away from Alex, shooting Elliot a smoldering glare. "Detective Cabot's onto us. Do we have an escape route planned?"

He laughed and put his left hand on the small of her back, and he walked, guiding her away from Alex and toward a group of people in the corner of the room. "Hey, guys," he said, downing the rest of his champagne.

"Stabler, Happy New Year, man," Fin said, raising his glass in greeting. "And Benson...damn, girl, who knew you were hiding those dangerous curves under your suits?"

"I did," Elliot said with a smirk, dropping his empty glass onto the tray of a passing waiter, exchanging it for a full one.

Fin narrowed his eyes, but let the comment go, returning his attention to Olivia. "You making any resolutions, tonight?"

Olivia sipped and nodded. "Just one, but it's pretty major." She turned her head, hearing someone cough, and said, "Hi, John."

John Munch tilted his head. "Hello, Red Queen." He bowed in jest and added, "And the happiest of New Years to you."

Elliot laughed and looked at Fin. "He's loaded already, isn't he?"

Fin rolled his eyes. "Man, you have no idea. Beyond lit. He spent twenty minutes telling his crazy government conspiracy theories to the lamp, over there."

"Great," Elliot scoffed, and then he looked around. "You see Cragen, anywhere?"

Fin looped an arm around the shoulders of the woman next to him, shaking his head. "No sign of him, yet," he said. "Weird, he's usually the first one of us at these things."

"Yeah," Elliot breathed, taking a long swig of his drink.

"What about you," Fin said, lightly back-handing Elliot in the chest. "What's your resolution?"

"Tonight," Elliot said, his eyes traveling toward Olivia, "I'm promising myself...and someone else...that I'm..."

"All hail the chief!" Munch shouted, cutting into Elliot's words. He slapped Cragen on the back and pulled him into the small circle. "I knew someone was missing!"

Cragen blinked rapidly a few times. "We don't need a breathalyzer to tell this one's three sheets to the wind, huh?" He shook his head and then shook hands with Fin and Elliot, and then gave Olivia a small hug. "Happy New Year, everyone."

"Same to you, Cap," Olivia said with a smile.

Elliot smoothed his hand up and down her back a few times, taking another long drink, and then handed her his glass. "Hold this for me?"

"Sure," she told him, her knitted brow giving away her confusion. She watched him move over to Cragen and whisper something to him, and the two men walked away, fading from view.

"What's up with them?" Fin asked, jutting his chin in their direction.

"I have no idea," Olivia returned, but she immediately but her lip and felt her stomach churn. She did have an idea, after all. She felt someone tap her on the shoulder, and she turned around to greet them.

"A two-fisted-drink kinda night?" the man asked, pointing to the half-empty champagne glass in each of her hands.

"Oh, no," she smiled politely, "This one's Elliot's." She held her right hand a bit higher.

"Oh, right, right, Elliot," the man said with a slight disdain. "Where is that partner of yours? I need to speak to him."

"Talking to Cragen, by the bar," she said. "We couldn't have possibly done anything to piss you off, tonight, Tucker, so why do you..."

Ed Tucker looked honestly offended as he held up his left hand. "Benson, I'm not always out for your asses," he said snidely. "The man called me this morning. Left a voicemail, told me he needed to talk to me. I'm not chasing him down to string him up." He grinned and flattened out his tie. "Not tonight, anyway."

Olivia had gone white, losing track of the conversation somewhere in the middle. She thrust both champagne glasses into Tucker's hands and walked away from him fast, her heels clicking rapidly against the marble floor as she headed for the bar. For Elliot. Reaching him, she grabbed hold of his arm and pulled hard.

"Ow! Hey!" He spun around and stared at her, slightly pissed. "Rude!"

"Oh, I'm rude? You're the one using tonight as an opportunity to quit on me!" She ran both hands through her hair as he chest heaved. "Christ, Elliot, you can't do this to..."

"Quit?" he hissed, grabbing both of her hands and pulling them down, holding them tight. "Baby, I'm not quitting."

"Tucker told me you called him," Olivia said, shaking. "First, you pull Cragen over here for a man-to-man chat, then Tucker tells me you...what the hell, Elliot?"

"I'm not quitting," he repeated, the grimace on his face now replaced by a warm smile. "That's why I needed to talk to Cragen, and I have to talk to Tucker...because of us. You said..." He pulled her closer. "Last night, you said you had every intention of kissing me, right here, and you didn't care who saw it happen." He dropped one of her hands, slid his fingers up her arm, around her neck, and into her hair. "I owed it to you...to us...to make sure that kiss wouldn't cost either of us our jobs."

"Oh, my God," she gasped, her eyes widening slightly. "You told Cragen?"

He nodded, licking his lips. "It didn't really surprise him." He shrugged and said, "We're the only ones this came as a shock to, I guess."

She tried to take a deep breath and moved further into him. "What did he say?"

"He said..." he began, tugging her hair lightly, "...that as long as it didn't affect how we work, which...let's be honest here, we've been waiting for this for years, and these feelings...they've always been there, so...nothing's going to change. Except, you know, now when we piss each other off, we can actually fuck it out."

Laughing, she dropped her head into his chest. She felt his hand massaging her scalp and playing with her hair. "Cragen isn't the problem, then. Tucker has been waiting for something like this to..."

"Baby," he said, stopping her, "He can't bog me down for this." He slid his hand around to the front of her face and cupped her chin, tugging it upward. He looked into her eyes. "What's your resolution?"

"I'm..." She froze, then, realizing he knew what it was. "I'm not going to be afraid of this. Of us."

"So start not being afraid," he whispered to her, before gently kissing her lips. "Go back over there by Fin, keep Munch from spilling any government secrets, and I will be by your side as soon as I can."

She nodded and then, spurred by a new-found assurance, she kissed him sweetly. "Don't make me wait too long. It's almost midnight, and, uh, you have a resolution to stick to, too, you know."

He smiled. "Oh, I intend to," he told her, and with one more short kiss, he left her by the bar to find Tucker.

Alex walked up next to Olivia, grinning, and said, "Taking my advice, are we?"

Olivia shook her head and sighed. "No, Alex...El and I...we...it's been a while, now." She shrugged and looked at her friend, waiting.

Alex's face fell from grin to gape. "What?" She squinted slightly. "What...how long? He just got divorced! Oh, my...you were having an..."

"No!" Olivia stopped her firmly. "No, no...I was there...the night Kathy left, he called me. It didn't happen that night, don't look at me like that!"

"Sorry," Alex offered. "Go on."

Taking a deep breath, Olivia continued. "It was...hard for him, the first week." She toyed with the small, square pendent on her necklace. "He needed me. I knew I had to be there, for him, the kids...I helped them make it through the first few weeks, and Thanksgiving." She smiled, remembering how incredible Thanksgiving was, despite the underlying drama. "I stayed with them, with...with him, and by Christmas it was...we realized what we had, what we always had. We both wanted more, we knew it...and we just..."

"Didn't want to wait anymore," Elliot finished, stepping up behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist.

Fin walked over to them with his date, then, followed by Munch and Cragen, who was smiling almost proudly. "Guys, you're gonna miss the ball drop...uh, what am I looking at, here?"

Elliot chuckled, then bent his head and kissed Olivia's neck before spinning them around to face their friends. "You're looking at the hottest couple the NYPD has ever seen!" He gratefully took two full champagne glasses from a tray on the bar. He handed one to Olivia.

Fin looked at them, confused. "What...when...how..."

"It happened...as the bests things in life usually do," Cragen said, his arms at his sides and his hands in his pockets. "When you weren't looking." He jerked his head back toward the window, and then led his team over to it.

The room filled with loud, echoing voices, counting backward from ten.

Elliot wrapped himself around Olivia, so tightly he could feel her heart beat in time with his, and he nuzzled her nose for a moment.

They shared a laugh, shared a breath, and as the widely sung chorus of "one" filled the room, they shared a kiss. A kiss that could've shattered the enormous glass window they were standing before. A kiss that would make angels weep and Shakespeare write a brand new sonnet.

"Happy New Year," he panted, pulling away from her lips but keeping his head pressed to hers.

She let the fingers of her free hand rest against his cheek as she kissed him again, a long, lingering, kiss. Against his lips, on the breathiest whisper, she spoke, "Happy New Year, El." She pecked his lips again. "Now, tell, me...what was your resolution?"

He grinned. "I have everything I have ever dreamed of, right here in my arms, wrapped in red," he breathed out, and after kissing her once more, he looked into her eyes. "I am never letting go."

 ** _Happy New Year! Peace and Love_**

 ** _Jo_**

 ** _MarchCommaJo on Twitter_**


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